My musings, mostly concerning technology and politics.

Category: Simplify Suite

Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Service is a widely used method to deploy native Windows applications and full desktop access across the wire to a variety of client computing devices, including non-Windows devices, tablets and smartphones. Advantages to this type of deployment are widely appreciated. Applications can be deployed in a matter of minutes to large groups of users, regardless of computing platform. The management of these applications and resources can be handled at the server farm level, avoiding the need to continually “touch” each client device every time a new application or resource is added or changed. Since the applications and desktops run on the server, no data is maintained on the client, so there is some inherent data security.

In practice, deploying apps and other computing resources via RDS is easily accomplished with native tools when the installation is small and lacking in complexity. However, as soon as the installation grows to several apps, requires native (or mobile) printing, or more intricate control of the user experience, the operating system tools fall far short.

At Tricerat, we engineer software to simplify the job of the I.T. Admin. Enter Tricerat’s Simplify Suite and Simplify Printing TX. We designed these comprehensive software packages to address many of the significant shortcomings inherent with the native RDS technology. Importantly, our software is designed specifically to save the I.T. Admin precious time. This article presents a brief overview of the products’ purpose; future posts will examine certain aspects in a How To format.

The Tricerat Tools can:

* Assign and manage single applications or entire desktops. Applications and desktops can be assigned by user, group, or even by login location. Activate and deactivate desktops and applications for the entire server farm with one click.

* Deploy new sets of applications and printers to users in real time while they are logged in. Users simply press refresh and they immediately gain the new functionality. This provides an excellent way to test the roll out of application upgrades without disrupting production.

* Monitor all server processes, ensuring that no single process overruns the operation of the server in terms of memory or CPU. Automatic remediation actions are included to prevent dreaded server lock up and the exhaustion of memory.

* Replace Roaming profiles with a managed set of Hybrid Profiles that load 500% faster and without the corruption issues that are the cause of most user login failures.

* Provide complete control over folder redirection and registry operations, ensuring a consistent look and feel to applications across a farm of application servers. Registry tools allow discrete control over functions that appear in applications. Good examples are the removal of the “Run” command from Microsoft Word, or providing a standardized set of application tool bars for differing groups of users.

* Fix the issues associated with printing from a server application through a remote display device. Tricerat tools provide management of network and locally attached printers including all native printer functions, like stapling, sorting, collating, etc. Tricerat’s ScrewDrivers virtual driver technology ensures accurate print jobs regardless of the type of client device displaying the windows application or desktop. With our Simplify Printing TX application, you can even configure and manage all iOS and Android printing, including Google Cloud Print. Learn More about Simplify Printing TX.

* Manage all these aspects of the user environment from an easy to use database driven console.

Some of the world’s largest corporations have deployed Tricerat’s Simplify Suite and printing technologies to manage their RDS installations. Our software has been in active development for well over a decade and is serviced and supported by a worldwide network of highly skilled system integrators. If you are currently, or are considering deploying applications and desktops with RDS, you’ll find the Tricerat tools invaluable time savers. Look at this space for future How To articles.